I guess my interest in the Oscars waxes and wanes.
Even now, I have seen only 2 of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture last year, and have little inclination to see the rest any time soon. This time the nominees are better.
This is possibly how I would rank them:
Train Dreams: visually interesting, poetic, and moving. This is a great film about an ordinary man, about life and loss, about grief. Probably not the kind of films that would win an Oscar for Best Picture—it’s quiet and subtle—but Adolpho Veloso should win Best Cinematography. Can I hope? I still can’t believe that Best Cinematography went to Roma and Mank.
Sentimental Value: possibly a tie with Train Dreams. Train Dreams is more visually interesting but Sentimental Value has a more complex narrative—it’s about life and art, about a man’s estranged relationship with his two daughters, about his attempt to reconcile with them and create together a personal film. Joachim Trier gets us to see, more or less, the lives of four characters—the father/ film director, the two daughters, and the actress—and the film has quite a few strong performances, particularly Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. The Oscar for Best International Feature Film might end up going to The Voice of Hind Rajab (for political reasons), but I would be happy if Sentimental Value wins.
The Secret Agent: this is in a way a messy film—where is the story going?—but it’s constantly changing and the messiness is part of the charm. Amusingly, the most bizarre—even surreal—part of the film is based on a real thing in Brazilian history. The only thing I don’t like about it is the gore. If Best International Feature Film doesn’t go to Sentimental Value, which I think is a more sophisticated film, I wouldn’t mind if it goes to The Secret Agent.
Blue Moon: this one is not nominated for Best Picture, but for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor. Visually there isn’t much; it’s a dialogue-driven film. Part of my fondness for it is because I love the song “Blue Moon” (who doesn’t?) and Lorenz Hart—at least the Lorenz Hart in the film—loves Casablanca. If Sentimental Value doesn’t win Best Original Screenplay, I would be happy if it goes to Blue Moon.
Marty Supreme: I know everyone finds Timothée Chalamet irritating now, but I’m sorry to say that he is good in Marty Supreme—he carries the whole film. The strongest performances this year are possibly Ethan Hawke and Timothée Chalamet, though they’re nowhere near the same level as Anthony Hopkins in The Father—if we’re talking about the past 10 years—and Wagner Moura and Leonardo DiCaprio are also very good (I don’t mind anyone winning as long as it’s not Michael B. Jordan). The film as a whole is all right.
F1: this is a formulaic film, not as good as Ford v Ferrari, and not the kind of things one watches more than once. But I place it above Sinners and Bugonia because it’s well-paced, coherent, and entertaining.
Sinners: you don’t even have to watch Sinners to know it doesn’t deserve 16 Oscar nominations—more than anything else in history. I loved the music, I enjoyed some individual sequences, I liked the first 40 minutes (the film is 2 hours 17 minutes), but it’s a mess of a film. Some people are going to get offended, but I would say that Sentimental Value and Train Dreams are films for adults and Sinners is a film for children, not because it has vampires but because Ryan Coogler constantly spoonfeeds the audience with exposition and unnecessary flashbacks, and because the film pretends to be deep and serious by bringing in the race issue and creating a forced metaphor. The only Oscars it deserves to win are for Original Score, Original Song, maybe Makeup and Hairstyling, maybe Visual Effects. The reason the messiness of The Secret Agent works but Sinners doesn’t is that The Secret Agent constantly changes direction and yet there’s a centre (the main character), whereas Sinners confusingly moves between the black-gangsters-opening-a-juke-joint plot, the vampire plot, and the KKK plot.
One Battle After Another: I don’t dislike it the way I dislike Sinners, but my problem with One Battle After Another is that I don’t really know what it’s doing and what it’s meant to say. Why does it get 13 nominations? I have no idea. The only thing I’d like it to win is Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Sean Penn, who is the best part of the film (though I dislike him personally). The second best part of the film is the road—and the chasing scene—that is the Best Road in Cinema.
Bugonia: my problem with Bugonia, as with other films by Yorgos Lanthimos (especially Poor Things), is that he has style and I was (more or less) enjoying it whilst watching, but came to dislike its vision and ideas after thinking about it. This is a film of a misanthrope. One positive thing I can say is that I generally don’t like Emma Stone as an actress, but she’s good in this one. Do I think she’s going to win an Oscar? No, my guess is that Best Actress will go to Jessie Buckley, but I’ve only seen 2 of the nominated performances.
Frankenstein: there isn’t much I can say about it, as I only lasted about 30 minutes. All I’m going to say is that Guillermo del Toro is one of the worst directors working today and I still think it’s a joke that The Shape of Water won Best Picture several years ago.
Not ranked:
Hamnet: I haven’t seen it, as I’ve got the impression it’s made for a certain kind of audience that doesn’t include me. Judging by conversations online, I suppose Jessie Buckley is going to win an Oscar for Best Actress.
